Your opinion on MLK?

[Elfdart]

You really need to work on that reading comprehension, Elfy Boy. He didn't say that the civil rights movement should have just sat down, shut up, and worked for their rights, retard, he said that the current generation of blacks has unfortunately gleaned the wrong lesson from it, and are now agitating for things they should work for.

Such as?

None, I should hope. This doesn't mean that harping on it all the time is the most brilliant of plans. There's a difference between being aware of historical fact and being resentful of it to the point where you let your resentment harm you.

Name a prominent black person who can't go through a speech without bringing up slavery.

You need help knocking down that strawman?

Perinquus pitched the softball. Don't whine when I knock it out of the park.

Only because of the bigotry of others. Funny how only blacks are singled out for this. There are distinct styles of clothing, entertainment, dialects etc. etc. here in Texas. Yet Texans aren't hampered by it, are they? Quite the opposite. One son of a Connecticut blueblood got himself elected President recently by doing an imitation of a cowboy. Of course, there isn't the kind of hatred of Texans as there is of blacks.

There's a distinct difference between natural regional dialects and a conscious effort to form a separate subculture.

No there isn't.

And what the hell do you hope to gain by bringing the Bushes into this? It doesn't demonstrate a thing.

Yes it does. It shows that people only regard some dialects, entertainment etc. as being a form of self-segregation. Blacks who make it a point to not conform when it comes to the way they talk, what music they listen to, etc. are self-segregating according to Perinquus. Texans who make it a point to not conform are not. Hmmmmmm.

I should hope a police officer knows the difference between consensual sex and rape. And said rejection goes both ways. The subset of blacks who adopt the so-called "gangsta" subculture have a distinct tendency to reject whites.

And those Texans who adopt a shitkicker subculture have a distinct tendency to reject blacks... and gays... and Jews... and Hispanics... and so on...

Furthermore, blacks who do not adhere to the subculture are also frequently rejected. I've read numerous accounts of young blacks being rejected for performing well in school or "knowing too much."

And in my 95% white high school, white kids who studied were heckled, ridiculed and beaten up unless they could also play football. Blacks aren't the only people to ostracize people they consider social climbers or just simply smarter.

If a group not only fails to pursue advancement but actively rejects it, that group is not going to get very far. It's the also true of white hicks who exhibit similar behavior and rejection of learning.

You think? Last time I checked, it wasn't inner city school boards who were trying to ban teaching evolution. But blacks who put down fellow blacks for learning are for some reason considered a BIG PROBLEM, whereas crackers who (a) do likewise and (b) are far more numerous, powerful and influential are not. I think I know what this reason is.

While true, the statement is a red herring.

No. If King's faults bear scrutiny, so do Washington's and Jefferson's

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Thurgood Marshall deserves some credit, but it should be kept in mind that he was a snitch for the FBI and smeared civil rights activists for J. Edgar Hoover, Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The movement would have probably done better were it not for his Judas-like behavior.

What "shady means" did King use? I don't remember him being a stooge for the FBI.

"A snitch for the FBI" is hardly a bad thing when there is a legitimate crime going on (though granted claims were made about MLK which were entirely false).

Alright, look at it this way. MLK advocated breaking the law. That was his shady means. Thurgood Marshall worked inside the law to make major gains for the civil rights movement. MLK advocated breaking it. Granted, the crimes he and his followers committed were peaceful ones committed for a good cause, but they were, explicitly, crimes.

My argument is simply that it is unhealthy for people to get their way in a democracy by breaking the law. For the principles of the democratic system to be upheld, minorities must be willing of working inside the law to have their grievances addressed. Clearly, Thurgood Marshall proved this was possible, since that is exactly what he did and it resulted in noticable achievements. MLK and his followers went outside the law, and though they gained a major achievement (the Civil Rights Act), in doing so they violated the critical principle of the democratic system--that we must respect the legislation of the majority, even as minorities have the right to countervailing protections to defend themselves from the excesses of their majority.

Since Thurgood Marshall demonstrated that the system worked--that those countervailing protections could be gained through legal means--the illegal actions of MLK and his followers were unnecessary, and arguably harmed the foundations of our government.

Essentially, what I am saying is that you should work within the law to gain a redress of grievances unless that law is demonstrated to be faulty and incapable of redressing those grievances, at which point, and then only, is civil disobedience a legitimate tactic. Since Thurgood Marshall had demonstrated that it was possible to get the system to redress those grievances by working within it, the actions of MLK and his followers were unnecessary and excessive.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Martin Luther King advocated peaceful protests and marches. Explain how that violated laws.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Martin Luther King advocated peaceful protests and marches. Explain how that violated laws.

He advocated civil disobedience, which is defined as (just grabbed it off Wikipedia for convenience): "Civil Disobedience characterises the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence." Emphasis added.

[Joe]

So you would not advocate peaceful civil disobedience in, for example, the event a gun confiscation law was passed?

[Mayabird]

A lot of people seem to forget something about King. After the Civil Rights Act was passed, he went from just being a civil rights leader for blacks to focusing more on the poor (granted, mostly black poor) and being against the Vietnam War. He was supporting a sanitation worker's strike in Memphis IIRC when he was assassinated. Others kept up the rhetoric, but he'd moved on to other things that he felt needed to be done.

[Rogue 9]

You really need to work on that reading comprehension, Elfy Boy. He didn't say that the civil rights movement should have just sat down, shut up, and worked for their rights, retard, he said that the current generation of blacks has unfortunately gleaned the wrong lesson from it, and are now agitating for things they should work for.

Such as?

Affirmative action is the big one. Agitation for slavery reparations doesn't even fall into the category of agitating for something one should work for, as at this point all individuals who could rightfully be made to pay reparations for holding slaves are long dead and all who suffered under the taskmaster's whip are likewise in their graves. As such, reparations should not be an issue at all, much less agitated for.

None, I should hope. This doesn't mean that harping on it all the time is the most brilliant of plans. There's a difference between being aware of historical fact and being resentful of it to the point where you let your resentment harm you.

Name a prominent black person who can't go through a speech without bringing up slavery.

I don't have to prove a negative, and furthermore I don't need to. That the slavery of 140 years ago is still presented as a current issue now at all is enough for what I said. Justifying affirmative action on the basis of one's great-great-great grandfather's status as a slave is a bit disingenuous at this point, to say nothing of making someone else's great-great-great grandson give you money because of what his great-great-great grandfather did to yours.

You need help knocking down that strawman?

Perinquus pitched the softball. Don't whine when I knock it out of the park.

You actually think that you rebutted his point? Not only did you miss the pitch, you were at the wrong baseball diamond entirely. Nowhere did he advocate preferential hiring practices for whites. That was entirely your invention and you proceeded to flame him over it after introducing it yourself in the first place.

Only because of the bigotry of others. Funny how only blacks are singled out for this. There are distinct styles of clothing, entertainment, dialects etc. etc. here in Texas. Yet Texans aren't hampered by it, are they? Quite the opposite. One son of a Connecticut blueblood got himself elected President recently by doing an imitation of a cowboy. Of course, there isn't the kind of hatred of Texans as there is of blacks.

There's a distinct difference between natural regional dialects and a conscious effort to form a separate subculture.

No there isn't.

Brilliant rebuttal. Local dialects will form among different geographical regions. This is a natural process. No one in Texas woke up one morning and said "I think we should develop a new accent to use just so we can piss everybody off!" It happened due to the various influences on the local dialect, including proximity to and former provinceship of a Spanish-speaking nation and the normal variations that gradually work their way into language. I reiterate, there is a difference between that and intentionally forming an entire separate subculture (note that I did not limit myself to dialect when I said that) just to be different and separate yourself.

And what the hell do you hope to gain by bringing the Bushes into this? It doesn't demonstrate a thing.

Yes it does. It shows that people only regard some dialects, entertainment etc. as being a form of self-segregation. Blacks who make it a point to not conform when it comes to the way they talk, what music they listen to, etc. are self-segregating according to Perinquus. Texans who make it a point to not conform are not. Hmmmmmm.

1.) You're making an assumption about his position. He said nothing about Texans; you brought up the example and are now presuming his reaction to it without letting him actually respond. Know what we call this? A strawman.

2.) If Texans were, in fact, intentionally separating themselves just for the sake of being separate through their dialect, you'd have a point about them. As it stands, they aren't, at least not in large numbers. Therefore you don't.

I should hope a police officer knows the difference between consensual sex and rape. And said rejection goes both ways. The subset of blacks who adopt the so-called "gangsta" subculture have a distinct tendency to reject whites.

And those Texans who adopt a shitkicker subculture have a distinct tendency to reject blacks... and gays... and Jews... and Hispanics... and so on...

And those Texans that do so are assholes. What they are not, however, is the subject of this thread. Red herring.

Furthermore, blacks who do not adhere to the subculture are also frequently rejected. I've read numerous accounts of young blacks being rejected for performing well in school or "knowing too much."

And in my 95% white high school, white kids who studied were heckled, ridiculed and beaten up unless they could also play football. Blacks aren't the only people to ostracize people they consider social climbers or just simply smarter.

I didn't say they were. In fact, I said just the opposite, as you quoted below.

If a group not only fails to pursue advancement but actively rejects it, that group is not going to get very far. It's the also true of white hicks who exhibit similar behavior and rejection of learning.

You think? Last time I checked, it wasn't inner city school boards who were trying to ban teaching evolution. But blacks who put down fellow blacks for learning are for some reason considered a BIG PROBLEM, whereas crackers who (a) do likewise and (b) are far more numerous, powerful and influential are not. I think I know what this reason is.

Said "crackers" are, in fact, a problem. If this were a thread about the problem they present then I would be all over it, as I have been on the receiving end of such behavior for a large portion of my pre-college life. It isn't, so I'm not.

While true, the statement is a red herring.

No. If King's faults bear scrutiny, so do Washington's and Jefferson's

[/quote]
They do, yes. You've obviously never seen me lay into Jefferson when the mood strikes me. But since this thread is about what we think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and not about our opinions of Thomas Jefferson, the matter is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So you would not advocate peaceful civil disobedience in, for example, the event a gun confiscation law was passed?

The obvious recourse would be to the courts, and only if that failed should the law be disobeyed--in such a situation, it should be furthermore disobeyed by armed insurrection, not peaceful protest.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A lot of people seem to forget something about King. After the Civil Rights Act was passed, he went from just being a civil rights leader for blacks to focusing more on the poor (granted, mostly black poor) and being against the Vietnam War. He was supporting a sanitation worker's strike in Memphis IIRC when he was assassinated. Others kept up the rhetoric, but he'd moved on to other things that he felt needed to be done.

Yes, none of which were particularly good causes.

[Rogue 9]

Martin Luther King advocated peaceful protests and marches. Explain how that violated laws.

He advocated civil disobedience, which is defined as (just grabbed it off Wikipedia for convenience): "Civil Disobedience characterises the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence." Emphasis added.

The laws in question were state laws in direct violation of both the United States Code and the Constitution. As such, they were overridden and invalid. I therefore question whether he was really breaking the law, or whether the Mississippi and Alabama legislatures were when they issued the statuted he advocated violating.

[Knife]

Meh. He was an eloquent speaker and a figure head for an importent political issue 40 years ago. He was diefied because he got assasinated.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act was an importent step in our country, and he had a part in it, thus he should be remembered.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The laws in question were state laws in direct violation of both the United States Code and the Constitution. As such, they were overridden and invalid. I therefore question whether he was really breaking the law, or whether the Mississippi and Alabama legislatures were when they issued the statuted he advocated violating.

They are not overriden and invalid until the Supreme Court declares them to be so, thus, he was encouraging the violation of statutes in force (until such time as they had been struck down by the Supreme Court, at which time attempting to enforce them would, indeed, be unconstitutional). In our legal system a law is presumed to be constitutional until it is proven to be unconstitutional; thus, until a definitive ruling by the courts on the legitimacy of the law in question has been made, it must be considered to be constitutional and obeyed as such.

Civil disobedience against such laws is unnecessary, undemocratic, and sets dangerous precedent. Their revocation through the courts should instead be pursued. Were the government to continue to enforce them then, after their unconstitutionality had been legally demonstrated, appropriate action should be taken by all levels of society as necessary.

[Rogue 9]

So you would not advocate peaceful civil disobedience in, for example, the event a gun confiscation law was passed?

The obvious recourse would be to the courts, and only if that failed should the law be disobeyed--in such a situation, it should be furthermore disobeyed by armed insurrection, not peaceful protest.

The obvious recourse in the civil rights movement was to the courts. See Brown vs. Board of Education, South Carolina vs. Katzenbach, Katzenbach vs. McClung, and so forth. Said decisions were widely ignored.

And incidentally, your conclusion that armed insurrection is preferable to civil disobedience is laughable. I'd rather not hand the writers of this hypothetical ban all the justification they need on a silver platter, y'know?

[Rogue 9]

A lot of people seem to forget something about King. After the Civil Rights Act was passed, he went from just being a civil rights leader for blacks to focusing more on the poor (granted, mostly black poor) and being against the Vietnam War. He was supporting a sanitation worker's strike in Memphis IIRC when he was assassinated. Others kept up the rhetoric, but he'd moved on to other things that he felt needed to be done.

Yes, none of which were particularly good causes.

So... Charity work and the improvement of working conditions aren't good causes? The Vietnam War was grossly mismanaged; there was reason to be against it given the way it was being fought. If the paper pushers had grown some balls and let the Army do what it needed to do then there would be a lot less legitimate room to complain, but as it stands there was a lot about that war to be against.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The obvious recourse in the civil rights movement was to the courts. See Brown vs. Board of Education, South Carolina vs. Katzenbach, Katzenbach vs. McClung, and so forth. Said decisions were widely ignored.

Brown Vs. Board of Education had been enforced by Eisenhower dispatching federal government troops to the south in the 50s, before MLK had even really gotten started. A case-by-case evaluation of MLK's numerous activities is not really practical here, at any rate, and I'm not arguing that everything he did was illegal or that he contributed nothing to society, my original wording was simply that some of his tactics were shady, IE, in a bit of a gray area.

And incidentally, your conclusion that armed insurrection is preferable to civil disobedience is laughable. I'd rather not hand the writers of this hypothetical ban all the justification they need on a silver platter, y'know?

That conclusion is based on what would be more effective in that solution, nothing more.

[Durandal]

Here's something to think about. It's interesting to me that MLK is reknown for his devotion to nonviolence. Of all the protests during the civil rights movement, the ones that drew the attention of the national media were the violent ones. King knew this, and he chose his marches accordingly. He went were the violence, and subsequentlythe cameras would be. It really was a brilliant strategy. He knew that the overwhelming majority of the country would be utterly disgusted by brutality and abuse of power perpetrated by southern law enforcement and polititians. He orchestrated violent bloody confrontations to achive a noble end. Therefore you really can't call him an icon of nonviolence, can you?

Oh come on. Telling your followers not to violently resist persecution and highlighting the violence used against your followers are not even in the same god damn ballpark. Surely you don't need to difference explained to you.

[Rogue 9]

And again, fighting the Army with hunting rifles and handguns isn't going to be effective in the least. *Shrug*

[Howedar]

I've read that MLK often went into areas in which progress was already being made, then flew the flag and took credit for the actions of others. Many situations were ostensibly on their way to resolution before MLK showed up.

I don't remember where I read this, and so I'm not in any way making this argument or supporting this point of view at this time. I would, however, be curious if others have seen this theory advocated elsewhere.

[Durandal]

Alright, look at it this way. MLK advocated breaking the law. That was his shady means. Thurgood Marshall worked inside the law to make major gains for the civil rights movement. MLK advocated breaking it. Granted, the crimes he and his followers committed were peaceful ones committed for a good cause, but they were, explicitly, crimes.

Uh huh ... so someone who advocates civil disobedience is using "shady means" to accomplish his end? Jesus, are you off your meds or something? When I think of "shady means," I think of bribery, extortion, blackmail or a mob hit. King made it clear that he advocated civil disobedience as a way for blacks to get what they wanted. How the hell can the means be "shady" if they're right out in the open?

[Petrosjko]

Duchess, the nonviolent approach worked precisely because in the end it generated sympathy instead of hatred. If the black population in the country had taken up arms and actively revolted, it would have brought white fence-sitters over to the side of the racist contingent and given us a far worse racial divide.

It may not have been kosher in your book, but it was the best answer.

Personally I'll take civil disobedience, if it's a realistic option, over taking arms against my fellow Americans any day.

[Elfdart]

Affirmative action is the big one. Agitation for slavery reparations doesn't even fall into the category of agitating for something one should work for, as at this point all individuals who could rightfully be made to pay reparations for holding slaves are long dead and all who suffered under the taskmaster's whip are likewise in their graves. As such, reparations should not be an issue at all, much less agitated for.

Try reading what King said or wrote. How about this from his book Why We Can't Wait ?:

No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries; Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.

Here's MLK on affirmative action (from Where Do We Go From Here?):

"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis."

again, same source:

"If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas."

So it's not that Jackson, Young, Bond and living civil rights leaders are advocating things King didn't stand for; it's because they support the things he DID stand for. King's dead so he's harmless to the point of being re-imagined as a conservative houseboy. The others are alive, so they get the same horseshit dumped on them today that King had dumped on him four decades ago.

Brilliant rebuttal. Local dialects will form among different geographical regions. This is a natural process. No one in Texas woke up one morning and said "I think we should develop a new accent to use just so we can piss everybody off!" It happened due to the various influences on the local dialect, including proximity to and former provinceship of a Spanish-speaking nation and the normal variations that gradually work their way into language. I reiterate, there is a difference between that and intentionally forming an entire separate subculture (note that I did not limit myself to dialect when I said that) just to be different and separate yourself.

And so-called "black culture" just sprouted out of someone's head? I have news for you, a lot of people in Texas like Dubya because he says "nucular". When people born and raised here go abroad for school and come home, they go out of their way to talk "Texan" -especially if they want to run for public office. To lose the local accent is considered a sin and a sign that the person has turned into a "Yankee" and a communist fag.

1.) You're making an assumption about his position. He said nothing about Texans; you brought up the example and are now presuming his reaction to it without letting him actually respond. Know what we call this? A strawman.

No, a "for instance" that shows how ridiculous his line of reasoning is.

2.) If Texans were, in fact, intentionally separating themselves just for the sake of being separate through their dialect, you'd have a point about them. As it stands, they aren't, at least not in large numbers. Therefore you don't.

They have, I did and I do.

And those Texans that do so are assholes. What they are not, however, is the subject of this thread. Red herring.

No, an example of why your line of reasoning is dumb. But not nearly as dumb as the Dumbass of Zeon whom I shall deal with presently.

The laws in question were state laws in direct violation of both the United States Code and the Constitution. As such, they were overridden and invalid. I therefore question whether he was really breaking the law, or whether the Mississippi and Alabama legislatures were when they issued the statuted he advocated violating.

They are not overriden and invalid until the Supreme Court declares them to be so, thus, he was encouraging the violation of statutes in force (until such time as they had been struck down by the Supreme Court, at which time attempting to enforce them would, indeed, be unconstitutional). In our legal system a law is presumed to be constitutional until it is proven to be unconstitutional; thus, until a definitive ruling by the courts on the legitimacy of the law in question has been made, it must be considered to be constitutional and obeyed as such.

BULLSHIT! Laws that contradict the higher laws are invalid from the minute they sping out of the thick skulls of those who pass them. If Kentucky passed a law giving police the right to summarily behead anyone suspected of having overdue library books, and people in that state use civil disobedience to stop policemen from carrying out such illegal acts, are they doing something "shady". Are you trying to be funny or are you morally retarded?

Civil disobedience against such laws is unnecessary,

Just that without it, the illegal laws would still be enforced.

undemocratic, and sets dangerous precedent.

This country is not a democracy. No loss there. It sets a very good precedent: People shouldn't lay down like sheep when the state violates their rights.

Their revocation through the courts should instead be pursued. Were the government to continue to enforce them then, after their unconstitutionality had been legally demonstrated, appropriate action should be taken by all levels of society as necessary.

Really? The courts had already ruled and the crackers STILL wouldn't let black people register to vote (just one example). Should they have asked the court for another ruling that the crackers ignored?

[Pick]

Honestly, I don't know enough about him to make a very informed judgement. However, my personal opinion when it comes to these types of situations is that there should be more focus on the collective and not the figurehead. Obviously a good leader makes a very important contribution to a cause, but the followers don't deserve to be forgotten any more than that leader.

[Elfdart]

I've read that MLK often went into areas in which progress was already being made, then flew the flag and took credit for the actions of others. Many situations were ostensibly on their way to resolution before MLK showed up.

I don't remember where I read this, and so I'm not in any way making this argument or supporting this point of view at this time. I would, however, be curious if others have seen this theory advocated elsewhere.

Sounds like George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Robert Byrd and others who insisted that things would be resolved swimmingly if only those damned outside agitators hadn't poked their noses in... I detect a strong whiff of bullshit. King's problem was quite the opposite: that people wanted him and the other civil rights leaders everywhere and he couldn't attend every march, rally, strike or boycott.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Uh huh ... so someone who advocates civil disobedience is using "shady means" to accomplish his end? Jesus, are you off your meds or something? When I think of "shady means," I think of bribery, extortion, blackmail or a mob hit. King made it clear that he advocated civil disobedience as a way for blacks to get what they wanted. How the hell can the means be "shady" if they're right out in the open?

What I mean by that is that under certain circumstances civil disobedience is inappropriate, and there were several times when MLK encouraged civil disobedience over issues where it is questionable whether or not it was a legitimate/appropriate tactic.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Duchess, the nonviolent approach worked precisely because in the end it generated sympathy instead of hatred. If the black population in the country had taken up arms and actively revolted, it would have brought white fence-sitters over to the side of the racist contingent and given us a far worse racial divide.

It may not have been kosher in your book, but it was the best answer.

Personally I'll take civil disobedience, if it's a realistic option, over taking arms against my fellow Americans any day.

I never advocated armed resistance over this issue, but rather one which was totally unrelated to it and in fact quite irrelevant to this discussion.